[DCRM-L] Artists' books with accompanying digital media

[Ann K.D. Myers]

Hi Randy,

Our workflow for artists' books with accompanying digital media is roughly as follows:

  1.
Remove the media from the book, with a note in the catalog record indicating its original position and indicating that digital remediation is in process.
  2.
Transfer the media to our digital archivist, who creates a preservation copy of the media which is uploaded to our digital repository.
  3.
Depending on the permissions associated with the digital media, it might be available alongside the catalog record as downloadable or view only, to Stanford only users or to anyone, or it might only be accessible via one of the media stations in the reading room. We usually determine permissions in conversation with the curator who acquired the item and, when possible, the artist who created it.
  4.
The physical media is stored with our other small computer media, and is not made available to users.
  5.
The catalog record is updated with information about how to access the digital media.

We have also been rethinking the removal of the digital media in light of the increasing number of examples of boxes specially designed to hold specially designed flash drives, etc. but still feel cautious about giving users access to something they can stick in their computer and perhaps (inadvertently or otherwise) corrupt, or have their computer corrupted by. In general, we make exceptions to the above workflow when it seems that removing the physical media would significantly alter the artist's intention and/or the user's experience of the book - hardly cut and dried methodology.

--Ann



Ann K.D. Myers

Senior Rare Books Cataloger

Stanford Libraries

Dept. of Special Collections and University Archives

415 Broadway, Floor 1, 8406

Redwood City, CA 94063

akdmyers at stanford.edu

any pronouns

________________________________
From: DCRM-L <dcrm-l-bounces at lib.byu.edu> on behalf of Randal Brandt via DCRM-L <dcrm-l at lib.byu.edu>
Sent: Monday, November 18, 2024 10:28 AM
To: DCRM-L <dcrm-l at lib.byu.edu>
Cc: Randal Brandt <rbrandt at berkeley.edu>
Subject: [DCRM-L] Artists' books with accompanying digital media

Hi all,

This is not a cataloging question, per se, but I thought I might get some helpful advice from this group.

At The Bancroft Library, we are currently re-examining our workflows around artists' books that come in with accompanying media. For many years, the media was in the form of a compact disc; now, more frequently, it is in the form of a USB flash drive, and usually the book or housing has been specially constructed to hold the media in place. Our current policy is to remove the media, create a separate holdings and item record for it, and shelve it separately from the book, with curatorial approval required for users to access the media. Discs are easy to store in this manner; flash drives (especially some that have been created as an integral part of an artists' book), are more problematic. That's the part we are re-examining.

The discussion about leaving media in place has also surfaced a discussion about long-term digital preservation. We are pondering a workflow that would send the artists' book from cataloging to our digital collections unit, where they would copy the media into our digital preservation system (this would be a dark copy, only there for the day when the media fails) before being made available to users in our reading room.

As part of our discussions, we were wondering what other institutions do in these cases.

Do you leave the media in place with the host item?
Do you require any special permission for users to access the contents of the media?
Do you perform any preemptive preservation of the contents of the media?

Many thanks,
Randy
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